Felt

Abundant production from gas shale plays last year and so far this year is starting to be felt in the natural gas pipeline and storage sector, according to analysts at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P). During a briefing Tuesday they suggested that some pipes could face recontracting pressures and some premium storage services could lose a little pricing power.

Wasting no time in making its presence felt in North America, Gazprom Marketing & Trading Ltd. (GM&T), a subsidiary of Russian natural gas giant Gazprom, jointly announced last week with France’s EDF Trading an agreement to swap natural gas between the United States and United Kingdom markets.

Wasting no time in making its presence felt in North America, Gazprom Marketing & Trading Ltd. (GM&T), a subsidiary of Russian natural gas giant Gazprom, jointly announced Tuesday with France’s EDF Trading an agreement to swap natural gas between the United States and United Kingdom markets.

A series of earthquakes along the central Gulf of California coast of Baja California Monday through Wednesday were felt widely in Mexico and the western United States, but San Diego-based Sempra Energy reported that the quakes had no impact on its Costa Azul liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal or connecting transmission pipelines, which cut across the northern-most stretch of North Baja.

The cash market succumbed to a growing dearth of cooling load in the Midwest, Northeast and Canada by dropping at most points Tuesday. It also felt negative pressure from the previous day’s 16.1-cent decline by August futures.

Wall Street’s shake-up this week was felt in three western public sector utility natural gas financing deals where muni electric operations have tried to protect themselves against volatile and higher wholesale gas prices with long-term, prepaid supplies. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) on Monday put each of the deals on CreditWatch with “developing implications.”

While San Diego, CA-based Sempra Energy had little or nothing to say Tuesday to reports of severe financial losses being felt at its joint venture commodity training partner, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), the red ink seems to keep growing and the United Kingdom (UK) government is planning to take even bigger stakes in its banking industry.

Weeks after Halloween’s tricks and treats were gone, natural gas futures traders felt tricked anew Thursday on news of an upward revision in natural gas storage figures by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). News of more gas in storage than first expected along with Thursday’s report of a 16 Bcf build for the week ended Nov. 14 gave the bears the upper hand in morning trade as December futures pushed lower, ultimately settling at $6.316, down 42.7 cents on the day.

After December futures gave back 34.7 cents on Thursday, bearish traders looking to capitalize on the momentum on Halloween felt more tricked than treated. Whether it was a result of bearish weather fundamentals weakening or just traders playing the recent range, the front-month contract ended up closing at $6.783 on Friday, up 35.2 cents from Thursday and 32.1 cents higher than the previous week’s close.